fuzzy time of year

Love me some holidays! I wasn't in such a great mood for the last few weeks and a few people mentioned that it might be due to that limbo period between gorgeous cozy autumn, which ended as quickly as it began, and fuzzy holidays. Totally true. But now that Thanksgiving has officially come and gone, I'm totally in that festive Christmas mood! I've started my annual Christmas card making, made my first gift purchase, Mandsi decorated the apartment, and this afternoon I had my first peppermint mocha. I'm definitely going to try and maintain this good mood for the rest of the year in hopes that it will be a good way to start off a MUCH better new year.

Anyway! Some end of the month updates:

#17 - I don't remember being particularly outlandishly selfish at any time this month...but something selfish-y comes to mind, so I'll just count that.

#29 - The "Harvest" dinner party for 11 last weekend was a huge success! Mandsi and my menu included: spiced nuts, crackers with brie and fig spread, barbecue meatballs, roasted butternut squash and apple soup (which of course fulfills #45 and #50), to-die-for fried ravioli with pumpkin dipping sauce, and pecan bars and pumpkin bread for dessert. We also had beverages aplenty! Gin martinis, spiced wine, and Leinie's Fireside Nut Brown ale to name a few, and I partook in all ;)

#50 - I'm going to try and find a unique recipe that uses cranberries since they're in season now.

#51 - No eating out worked really well this month! As I mentioned, the one dispensation I had was for Monica and Tim's anniversary party at Fox & Hound since I didn't really have a choice. I did turn down several invitations to go out though (one of which I spent the night staring at my silent cell phone and clawing at the walls) so I'm proud ;) This month is another difficult one, however, as I'm giving up all alcohol except wine, and preferably only drinking red. But once again, a couple dispensations as it is the holiday season: a. either while my sis and I are in Chicago or afterwards at Blu/Centanni, I may have to indulge in a fancy martini, b. I'm going to have one holiday cocktail at my parents for Christmas (we make a special batch every year). But other than that, I'll only have wine on occasions like my work holiday party and even the hours leading up to midnight on New Years. Now while wine isn't your nice cheap Miller Lite and this might put a little bit of a dent into my checking account, I'm hoping that'll make me drink less as I have had WAY too much lately. This past weekend alone was enough to kill a small horse.

#68 - Fox & Hound as I ate an absolute TON that night

#87 - Can't say that I really discovered anything new, but I did put a Ladytron album on my Christmas list and I haven't really listened to them before??

And that's that! I can't say that life has been particularly exciting lately, but I guess no news is good news. At least for now.

one year later

Let me begin by wishing Monica and Tim a happy one year anniversary! They definitely experienced all that a first year of marriage could offer and perhaps more downs than ups, but I am so proud of how far they've come! Reading Monica's blog this past year has taught me that marriage is everything BUT easy, but also that it is something worth fighting for! I know that they will always remember this first year and it will positively affect their years to come.

Speaking OF time, sixish months ago, Monica and I were BOTH in the thick of our lowpoints in life. Tim had lost his job and past relationship woes were resurfacing...and I wasn't doing so hot recovering from my breakup and, thus, making bad decisions in life. So we made an unofficial pact that since things were so Rainbows and Sunshine six months PRIOR to that point (Monica and Tim were getting married and I was happy with John), things just HAD to get better six months into the future! Ebbs and Flows, you know?

So here we are entering into the homestretch of that new six month mark and some promising changes are indeed on the horizon. For example, I am definitely hoping for a promising future at my job. For the past few months, I've gone CSS/HTML crazy and taught myself SO much!! A couple weeks ago I created my first CSS-based official landing page for one of our clients. I had to use their branding standards though, and also wasn't able to set the whole thing up myself. However, last week, I created a landing page for another client...and with this one, I was able to use all of my own design AND set the entire thing up myself! Huge step!! This is a great direction I'm heading toward, creatively and professionally speaking. I do really hope the Powers that Be AT my job are able to allow me to officially go this route. And I hope this unfolds fairly soon. In any case, I'm officially crossing #1 off of my list! It was one of the more daunting tasks, so this is pretty awesome. And now that I know SO much more about web design, my own personal portfolio site will be that much easier to create.

In other task news, I've made three recipes (#45) for Nov: balsamic pork chops with garlic mashed cauliflower and drunken apples, crab cake sandwiches, and dill crab and asparagus pasta. And I got my hair cut for fall (#54) last week. Many more tasks to be completed soon including catering a dinner party, a train ride down to Chicago, The Nutcracker, being a bell ringer for the Salvation Army, and hopefully some ice skating!

Things aren't all that bad...I was just talking to my sis last night about how I wish I could be happy for longer than a fleeting moment. I'm not depressed by any means, but I don't know. Maybe just restless. I'm growing tired of the limbo state of my life and wish that something could settle itself. So I'm hoping for the career part to work out for now, and then perhaps the rest will fall into place.

fall's not over yet!

I FINALLY posted over at the photoblog! AND added a whole mess of pix to flickr. YAY!

Ok that's it.

No, NOT it!! I forgot to make a huge deal about the fact that I have ONE YEAR LEFT on my list!!! So here is the current tally...not awful, but the ones I have left are redonkulously painful...mostly creative projects that take an insane amount of time. In any case, tally:


In Progress with Nearby Completion Date: 11
In Progress until List End Date: 18
In Progress, but will finish up before that: 3
COMPLETED: 47!
Remaining: 22 :( (but that's down by 15 since my halfway mark in June!!)


So in essence, I will be over the halfway mark with roughly 61 tasks completed in a few months. And if you include the tasks I do monthly and have to continue until the end, that's 79. Like I said, not awful. But I need to kick some list ass and soon or else!